Techmeme: Researchers detail Smominru, a Monero cryptocurrency mining botnet using NSA's EternalBlue exploit to enslave 500K+ computers, mostly targeting Windows servers (Danny Palmer/ZDNet)

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February 4, 2018, 12:40 PM

Top News

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: in the US, Apple Music subs are growing ~5% a month, may overtake Spotify this summer, which is growing at ~2% a month; Apple says Music has 36M subs — Apple's U.S. subscriber-account base has been growing about 5% a month, versus No. 1 Spotify's 2% clip

More: Engadget and 9to5Mac

Tweets: @mgsiegler, @davidclowery, and @jasonlk

Brad Sams / Thurrott.com:

Microsoft to stop offering the lightweight Windows 10 S as a separate SKU, will offer “S Mode” in all Windows 10 versions instead — When Microsoft announced Windows 10 S, it was immediately clear that this SKU didn't fit well into Microsoft's lineup.

More: The Verge, Neowin, Ubergizmo, TechSpot, gHacks Technology News, BetaNews, Firstpost, PCWorld, MSPoweruser, On MSFT, Engadget, ZDNet, SlashGear, Redmond, and Petri

Tweets: @backlon and @swiftonsecurity

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:

Amazon could disrupt US healthcare by converting a standardized healthcare interface for its employees into a marketplace for individuals and other employers — It's pretty rare for the same company to feature in two consecutive Weekly Articles; yesterday's announcement …

Tweets: @trishak42, @mikesparr, @jhoff, @freakonometrics, @carlajdouglas, @steve_e, and @nickcrocker

Anna Hensel / VentureBeat:

Report: warehouse and storage jobs increase 30% two years after a county hosts an Amazon fulfillment center, but overall jobs see no increase; Amazon disagrees — How great an effect a tech company has when it moves into a new town comes down to one thing: jobs.

More: Economic Policy Institute, The Guardian, and Business Insider. Tweets: @keithellison

Alana Semuels / The Atlantic:

Amazon's warehouse expansion around San Bernardino, CA brought jobs but data shows Amazon's warehouse staff earn less than similar US workers employed elsewhere

Tweets: @asherschechter, @wadhwa, @bentarnoff, @alexismadrigal, @gquaggiotto, @alanasemuels, @parismarx, @andykroll, and @dramandaforeman

Danny Palmer / ZDNet:

Researchers detail Smominru, a Monero cryptocurrency mining botnet using NSA's EternalBlue exploit to enslave 500K+ computers, mostly targeting Windows servers — The Smominru miner has infected at least half a million machines — mostly consisting of Windows servers — and spreads using the EternalBlue exploit.

More: Proofpoint, CoinDesk, The Register, The Hacker News, Motherboard, HackRead, SecurityWeek, BleepingComputer.com, and Ars Technica. Tweets: @gossithedog

Nellie Bowles / New York Times:

Dozens of people, rich from blockchain startups and cryptocurrency, try to build “Sol”, a Puerto Rican city where money is virtual and contracts are public — SAN JUAN, P.R. — They call what they are building Puertopia. But then someone told them, apparently in all seriousness …

More: Bitcoinist.com and socalTECH.com

Facebook: Méndez Giovanni and Jerry Paffendorf

Tweets: @cdlariviere, @mikebutcher, @queercruising, and @mmviverito

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Mammoth Media, the company behind chat fiction app Yarn and polling app Wishbone, raises $13M Series A led by Greylock — Mammoth Media has raised a $13 million Series A funding to create what it calls “entertainment experiences for the mobile-first generation.”

More: TechCrunch, Variety, Greylock Perspectives, Los Angeles Business Journal, Influencer Update, Mashable, FinSMEs, The Verge, and socalTECH.com

Emily Chang / Bloomberg:

How sexist undercurrents, from a widely-used Playboy image to personality tests favoring men, turned Silicon Valley into a brotopia despite early women pioneers — Lena Söderberg started out as just another Playboy centerfold. The 21-year-old Swedish model left her native Stockholm …

Tweets: @triketora and @mims

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Zero-day vulnerability in the current version of Flash is being actively exploited in the wild; Adobe plans to patch it next week — Adobe plans to have a fix for the critical flaw next week. — An increasingly sophisticated hacking group is exploiting a zero-day vulnerability …

More: Talos Blog, On MSFT, Firstpost, Krebs on Security, Neowin, The Register, MSPoweruser, Naked Security, Born's Tech and Windows World, and gHacks Technology News

New York Times:

Alibaba and Tencent, who have tested online medical advice and drug tracking systems, are now experimenting with AI to fix China's broken healthcare system — BEIJING — Amazon and two other American titans are trying to shake up health care by experimenting with their own employees' coverage.

More: Fortune. Tweets: @joshchin

Brad Stone / Bloomberg:

How Amazon may prevent Alexa ads from activating Echo devices: acoustic fingerprint comparison and inaudible sound signals — Amazon.com Inc. is advertising its Alexa-powered speakers in the big game on Sunday. It's an amusing 90 seconds that features celebrities like Gordon Ramsay …

More: Amazon Blog, Android Central, Neowin, Engadget, The Verge, International Business Times, SlashGear, and Deadline

Tweets: @dbreunig, @drewharwell, and @rachelmetz

Harish Jonnalagadda / Android Central:

Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar, an Indian streaming service, are outcompeting Netflix in India through aggressive pricing and strong content libraries — Netflix hasn't altered its pricing structure for the Indian market, and it's losing ground as a result.

More: FactorDaily. Tweets: @iamanshul and @gaurav_keswani

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:40 PM ET, February 4, 2018.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Heather Cherone / WTTW News:

NetChoice sues Illinois to block taxes on large social media companies and on companies with over $1M in gross receipts from digital ad services

Brett LoGiurato / Status:

NYT CEO Kopit Levien confirms The Athletic is no longer pursuing a major partnership with Kalshi, saying “we take the trust of our readers incredibly seriously”

Peter Kafka / Business Insider:

In an interview, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson says the number of subscribers the outlet gets from Google traffic has grown even as referral traffic has fallen

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More News

Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed:

Users in India shed light on the dynamics of family WhatsApp groups, which have become an integral extension of the families themselves

Tweets: @sunnysingh_n6, @anushkapatil, @secondofhername, @pranavdixit, @pranavdixit, @pranavdixit, and @pranavdixit

Reuters:

Germany's antitrust regulator opening probe into online advertising industry as concerns arise over dominance of Google and Facebook and use of consumer data

Tweets: @vijayshekhar

Nikkei:

Foxconn to invest at least $342M in AI in 5 years to recruit top talent, deploy manufacturing applications, says it is partnering with Andrew Ng's Landing.AI

More: TechCrunch and International Business Times

Tweets: @harper and @markmilian

Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:

Owl raises $18M Series A, unveils dashcam with break-in and accident detection, voice control, and smartphone integration, for $349 with 1 year of LTE included

More: The Verge, Tech Times, VentureBeat, Engadget, USA Today, Forbes, Fast Company, and Business Insider. Thanks:@drs650

Matt Weinberger / Business Insider:

Former employee of Ripcord, a paper record digitization service, says she was fired after reporting harassment, asserts CEO made lewd comments about her

More: Perry Coneybeer and TechCrunch

Tweets: @davegirouard, @katesegrin, @kurtvarner, @ashleymayer, @cindygallop, @buzz, @kimlembo, @cindygallop, @cindygallop, @mattocko, @ekp, and @smerity. Thanks:@lexnfx

Earlier Picks

Paul Lewis / The Guardian:

How YouTube's recommendation algorithm can promote divisive clips and conspiracy videos and may have spread disinformation during the 2016 election

More: Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Guardian, TechCrunch, and Wall Street Journal

Tweets: @casfriend, @chatox, @aparatbar, @randfish, @lizpelly, @zeynep, and @profcarroll